


In Your Love, My Salvation Lies

by WildnessBecomesYou



Category: Ratched (TV)
Genre: F/F, TGTYEL-verse, it does end happily though, less about Mildred and Gwendolyn than it is about the people they left behind, this is largely an exploration of grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:20:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29248671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WildnessBecomesYou/pseuds/WildnessBecomesYou
Summary: Mildred dies peacefully, in her sleep, in the moments before the sun rises.
Relationships: Gwendolyn Briggs/Mildred Ratched
Comments: 46
Kudos: 55





	In Your Love, My Salvation Lies

**Author's Note:**

> Hi folks. 
> 
> I, uh, I know it's been a long time. It's been a really hard month for me.
> 
> A couple days after I posted Twin High Maintenance Machines, my cat got violently ill, and as it turns out had been suffering from cancer. I had to make the worst decision of my life and put him to sleep. After that, everything was a panic trigger-- including these two. 
> 
> I'm still not up to speed, but it's better. I knew I couldn't jump into the normal stuff I would write for these two, and I needed another chance to sort of process the kind of grief I was dealing with. Then I heard the song Orange Sky by Alexi Murdoch on the walk home from the grocery store, and this popped into my head. 
> 
> I can't promise I'll be fully back. I can't promise anything, but I can tell you I don't intend to be done with this fandom. 
> 
> If you can't read past this, I totally understand. It's funerals and grief, and that's not easy, so if you can't then don't. Big love to you all. 
> 
> _Here is what I know now, brother_  
>  _Here is what I know now, sister, goes like this_  
>  _In your love_  
>  _My salvation lies in your love_  
>  _My salvation lies in your love_  
>  _My salvation lies in your love_  
>  _My salvation lies in your love_
> 
> _Well, I had a dream I_  
>  _Stood beneath an orange sky_  
>  _With my brother and my sister standing by_  
>  _With my brother and my sister standing by_  
>  _With my brother and my sister standing by_

“Fuck!”

_”Language!”_

“Honestly, I don’t think she gives a shit—“ 

“You just—!” 

“I think this is one of the few times she would actually _approve_ of cursing.” 

“She didn’t curse when— when Ma—“ 

“She cursed when Michael died.”

“Billy…”

“No, I— Ma was, was out, getting soup, and then Michael was just— all of a sudden he was—“

“Billy, you don’t have to. I’ll drop it.”

“No. Mom was with me. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and said “Mortality is a bitch.” I don’t think she’ll care if we let loose a couple fucks.” 

“Plus, you know, she’s…” 

“God. Don’t. Please.” 

“Where’s— where’s Trevor?” 

“I’m here, I’m… oh, Jesus.” 

“She was asleep.” 

“Thank God.” 

“Oh, fuck, is— is anyone asleep? I don’t want to—“

“No, no, everyone’s awake. Mariana is making coffee. Literally every coffee pot they’ve ever had is out and working.”

“Even the one from Mexico?” 

“She’s, like, singing to that one? To keep it calm?”

“God, y’all know what?”

“Kelly?”

“Mortality is a bitch.”  


* * *

They gather in the kitchen, the sixteen or so of them that were able to make it to the Briggs-Ratched house. Mariana doles out coffee, her body shaking with the effort of keeping herself together, refuses to stop moving. Kelly catches her by the wrist for a moment and presses her forehead to Mariana’s shoulder. Trevor and Isaac share the kitchen table with Anne and Sam. Marco sits on the floor, staring listlessly out the floor-to-ceiling windowed doors that go out to the patio; the signs of an illness he won’t recover from are starting to show, but he won’t ask that anyone leave a seat for him, not yet. The youngest of the family, a sharp-witted and shy just-18-year-old named Zhang, sits on the counter between the stove and the sink, knees to his chest.

He’d only known Gwendolyn a year before she passed, only been in the house for four years total. When Nadia moves to lean against the sink, he wraps his limbs around her, and she leans back into him with a sigh. 

“I was going to choose my courses with her next week.”

“I know, Z. I know.” 

Elina emerges from the basement, thick portfolios of photos and letters in her arms. She lets them thunk down onto the kitchen table and huffs a breath. “Do you know how weird it is to see someone else who has your name be standing with your parents?” 

Trevor laughs, briefly, before it turns into a sob. Isaac squeezes his hand. 

“What the fuck do we do now?” Alice breathes. It’s quiet, but it echoes in the sun-filled space. The sun had only just risen. 

“We have to call everyone else,” Isabella responds. “Most of us— most of us are here.” She glances at Marco. “But there’s calls to make. Do we— anybody got a number for Aunt Fern?” 

“Yeah,” Mariana says, “I can call her in a bit, I just—“ Her voice breaks and she braces herself against the counter. Kelly settles her hands at Mariana’s waist and squeezes. 

“Okay,” Isabella responds. “And, uhm, Aunt Vi?” 

“She—“ Zhang swallows and clears his throat a few times. He shakes his head, and Jimmy takes over from across the room. 

“Vi went after Aunt Elina, just a few months ago. I’m sorry, Bells, I thought you knew.” 

Isabella looks like she’s been smacked. “I didn’t— uh— I. Well, fuck.”

Jimmy crosses the few feet between them and wraps her in a hug. “So we only need to call Aunt Fern. We should give her a couple hours anyway, let the sun rise on her in Mexico before we tell her.”

“She’ll probably insist on coming up here,” Sam says, their voice trembling. “Should one of us go get her? Just so we don’t have an angry hundred-something doctor driving cross-country?” 

Isabella snorts. “Probably should send a team.”

Kelly snorts. “I know the area. I can go. Hog tie ‘er if need be.” 

There’s a few quiet moments. Someone stirs their coffee, spoon clinking against the mug, and Mariana starts slightly. 

“We should, uh, call a priest, I think,” Zhang says quietly. 

Nadia pats at his leg gently. “We’ll take care of it, sweetie. Don’t worry.”

Trevor’s head snaps up. “Did she own the house?” 

There’s an inhale that ripples through the room. More than a few eyes flit towards Zhang, more than a few glance down, wondering if they’re going to have to leave this place behind. 

“She did,” Isaac says, tapping on a photo in one of the opened albums. “Look.”

There’s a picture of Gwendolyn and Mildred, standing in front of the house, a deed in Gwendolyn’s hand. Mildred is pressed against Gwendolyn’s side, and she’s laughing as Gwendolyn kisses her cheek. 

Isaac holds up the picture in all of it’s greyscale glory. Smiles tug at the edges of everyone’s lips. “She had to have left it to Mom in the will, yeah?” 

“She did,” Zhang says. Heads snap around to him, and he pushes at Nadia until he can jump down off the counter. He goes to the family room, rustles around for a few moments, comes back holding a slightly curling, yellow-old piece of paper. “She left it to Mom. The will is in their bedroom, I just can’t…” 

Elina reaches for him, squeezes his still-boney shoulder. “It’s alright. We’ll get it later. It’s alright.” 

Jimmy exhales. “At least we know to trust that funeral home. They were good to us with— with Ma.”

“God bless Trevor Senior,” Alice adds wryly, smirking at Trevor, “for buying them those plots before he went.”

“Least he could do,” Trevor squeaks out. “With everything Ma and Mom did for him and Andrew.”  


* * *

Fernanda De la Peña, affectionately “Auntie Fern”, arrives in the passenger side of Kelly’s car two days before the wake. “You’re back early,” Mariana greets Kelly, presses a kiss to her lips before turning to Fernanda.

“Mijos,” Fernanda says gruffly, eyes flicking between Mariana and the five young adults gathered before the door. Her eyes narrow and she lifts a finger. “You, niño, are too skinny.” 

Zhang smiles. “Mom tried. She says I’m just built this way.”

Fernanda snorts. “So you were built like her.” 

There’s laughter at that, soft and relieved and tinged with grief. “Take me inside,” Fernanda demands, and Sam rushes down the stairs to take her arm. “I’m getting cold.”

Inside, she’s offered coffee; she goes to the liquor cabinet instead and demands shot glasses. They’re brought to her, four at a time, until she has twenty. She pulls a bottle of tequila out. “They made this last a _long_ time."

“Mom didn’t drink much after Ma died.” 

Fernanda stops mid-pour, blinks, goes quiet for a moment before she pours again. “No joy in it.” She glances at Kelly. “Should have told me to bring more.” 

“We can get shitty tequila at the bodega,” Kelly says. “And I’ve got a hookup for decent whiskey.” 

“God bless 1995.” 

Fernanda snorts. She hands a shot to each child— they’re adults, she knows, even the skinny little Chinese boy, but they’re children. They were Gwendolyn’s and Mildred’s. 

Zhang looks down at his shot glass. “I’ve never had alcohol before,” he says softly. 

“Shit, really?” Trevor breathes. Zhang shakes his head. “Mom never—?” 

“She didn’t drink much after Ma died. And it was just us, a lot of the time, and she offered, but I…” 

“It burns,” Fernanda says to fill the silence. He looks up at her with dark eyes that remind her of Mildred’s, though they’re almond-shaped rather than perfectly round. “It burns, and it’s somewhat unpleasant. But it makes you feel… better, later.” 

“Almost immediately,” Isabella grumbles. 

“To Mildred Briggs-Ratched,” Fernanda declares, straightening fully for the first time since her arrival. “And to those of us she left behind.” 

“May her memory be a blessing,” Miriam answers, her glass held level with her eyes. 

Fernanda smiles. “Drink up, mijos. We will need our strength.” 

Zhang coughs after his first shot. Fernanda smacks his back once with more strength than she ought to posses, however many years past a hundred that she is. He nods and she pours him another shot. “Slowly,” she says, cupping the back of his head, her lips to his ear. “And with water between this and the next.” She presses a kiss to his cheek and he throws the second shot back without coughing. “Good boy.” 

Fernanda begins every difficult conversation with a shot for anyone who wants one. Kelly finds her, the night before the wake, sitting in the open doorway of the master bedroom, staring at the bed in the moonlight. It isn’t until Kelly sits down that Fernanda notices her. 

She smiles past the tear-tracks on her face. “To be the last of a generation,” she breathes. 

“We’ve got you, Auntie,” Kelly replies, wrapping her hands around Fernanda’s.

“Oh, I know.”

They’re silent, for a while. Kelly’s the one to break the silence. “It was a heart thing,” she says. Fernanda looks up. “Docs said it was— probably from all the shit she went through as a kid, though she never talked about that really, but, you know, it was bad, right?” She pauses, and Fernanda squeezes her hands. “I think, though, that three years was just too much. I don’t think she could be without Ma anymore. I don’t think her heart could take it.”

Fernanda grunts slightly. “It feels a great cruelty, to outlive them both.” 

Kelly sniffles. They leave words behind and stare at the empty bed.  


* * *

“It’s better that they’re together,” Anne says when she’s had two glasses. “They ought to be together. She just faded those last couple of years.”

Zhang emerges from his bedroom and downs two shots before anyone can think better of it. “Slow down, kid,” Jimmy cautions. “Nothin’s ending tonight. You can have more tomorrow.”

There are stories told. Stories of beginnings, of first meetings, of rainy nights and empty bellies that became warm showers and dry clothes and a small, simple meal to start. Stories of comfort, of Gwendolyn sharing stories of her own sickness. 

_“You feel weak, but you’re not. You’re not. Look at you, my strong little man.”_

The words echo down through the years. 

“D’you think,” Isaac starts, hiccups slightly. “Mm. D’you think she’s up there? Ma? With everyone we’ve lost?”

Fernanda chuckles as Isabella tips into Isaac’s lap. His hand automatically finds the nape of her neck, starts carding his fingers through her hair. 

“If heaven, or some afterlife, exists, then yes,” Fernanda says. Someone takes away her empty glass and replaces it with a weaker spiked punch than before. She’d comment on that, but it means they care. “Your Ma, and all your siblings, and Violet and Elina are—“ 

Her voice breaks. Alice’s hand lands on her thigh and squeezes softly. 

“Are waiting for your Mom,” she says when she has her voice back. “Waiting with open arms.” 

Isabella sniffles violently. “I bet they have a bigger house in heaven.”

Laughter ripples between them, and it’s watery, but it’s there. 

No one stops Kelly when she climbs on top of the kitchen counter and starts belting “Loch Lomond.” Many of them join in, weaving their voices in and out, the way they’d always done at family dinners, no matter the record playing. It had always made Mildred smile. 

“Ma was Irish,” Billy says as he helps Kelly down.

“We don’t know what Mom was.”

“But she married Ma, who was Irish,” he insists. 

“Fuckin’ hell,” Anne drawls. She pulls Billy up on the counter with her, shoves his shoulder lightly, and starts singing in her rough and deep voice. “Of all the money that ‘ere I had—“ 

During the second round of dinner, where the night is darker than any of them remember and the hunger they feel won’t be sated by the food they’re passing around, the conversation becomes darker. “Who did Mom leave the house to?”

Sam is sitting next to Fernanda, towards the head of the table. Everyone turns to look at them. 

“She left it to Trevor,” Zhang says. “ _Our_ Trevor.”

Trevor blinks. Most eyes turn to look at him. “Because of my law background,” he says slowly. Zhang nods. 

“So what are you going to do with it?” Anne asks, and there isn’t any hiding the anxiety in her tone. 

“Well, Zhang still has to go to school,” Trevor starts, his fingertips pressed together, elbows on the table. “So I have no intention of selling, not while we still have family who need it.” 

A sigh of relief ripples down the table. 

“I’m not ready to say goodbye.” It comes from Isabella, further down the table, with her head in her hands. Mariana wraps a hand around her wrist and squeezes. 

“We won’t,” Trevor says, and Isabella sobs. “Not until we’re ready. All of us, until we’re _all_ ready.” 

There’s a quiet moment before Zhang says, “She left me her car, though.”

Laughter. 

There’s a lot of it, really. 

“Tell us about Mexico,” Mariana begs from her spot by Fernanda’s feet. “Please, Auntie, they said so little.” 

Fernanda huffs. “Light that fire and maybe I will.” 

Billy and Kelly manage to get a fire started, and Mariana and Isaac help Fernanda to a chair much closer. Mariana settles back down at her spot by Fernanda’s feet; Zhang finds himself with his head in Nadia’s lap as they sit on Fernanda’s other side, closer to the fire. Fernanda huffs a little as she settles in. 

“Your Mother,” she says after a long silence, pointing at each one of them, “was fucking wild.” 

Nadia chokes on her beer. Billy chokes on a laugh. 

“She once jumped off a cliff into the Mexican ocean. Well,” she sighs, “she did it multiple times.”

“Sorry, we’re talking about Mildred Briggs-Ratched, right?” Emily drawls. She’s been uncharacteristically quiet the past few days, but she pauses where she’s been refilling her sibling’s drinks. 

Fernanda grins. “Mmm. To be fair, we were all very drunk. Except for Elina, she was only somewhat drunk.” 

“You _all_ jumped off a cliff?”

Fernanda nods, still smiling. 

“Oh my god.” 

“It was New Year’s, and we felt young and alive. I don’t advise it, it’s dangerous, and your mother scared us all to death when she jumped off by herself. She didn’t know how to swim yet, but she just— dove in.” 

Her eyes fill with tears for a moment, and her throat closes around a squeak. “That was the thing about Mildred. It didn’t matter how scared she was. She always…” 

“Dove in,” Alice finishes for her, and she nods. 

Isabella clears her throat. “You know, when I first met her, she terrified me.” 

Fernanda snorts. “She was like that, no?”

“Yeah. Ma had found me going at it with some asshole trying to get up my skirt—“ 

“Pendejo.” 

“I said worse things. Ma got me out of there, brought me home, told Mom they needed to put new sheets on the bed. She came out and she just looked so—“ 

“Sharp,” Zhang says in her hesitation. 

“Yeah. Sharp. And then she smiled,” Isabella continues. She sniffles, rolls her shoulders back. “And she said she bet we were the same dress size. Asked when the last hot meal I’d had was.” 

“By the time you realised Ma wasn’t there, she’d changed the sheets already, hadn’t she,” Trevor says. 

“And then Mom came out of nowhere with some casserole or soup or a baked chicken and vegetables,” Alice adds, sniffling through her smile. 

“Always insisted you finished your vegetables,” Isaac laughs.

“Did she still eat hers first?” Fernanda asks, leaning forward. 

“Always,” Zhang says dryly. He wipes at his face. “Vegetables, meat, starch.” 

“Unless it was an expensive starch.” 

There’s a brief silence before Marco speaks up, curled up in a blanket by the fire. “We aren’t going to stop having family dinners, are we?” 

“Fuck no,” comes the chorus of responses.

“Language!” 

“Mariana, I swear to _God_ —“ 

Fernanda cackles over the ensuing argument. 

“You’ll stay for family dinner, won’t you?” Anne asks Fernanda. 

“I’m retired,” Fernanda says. “I have nowhere to be.” At the cautiously hopeful faces that turn to her, she sighs. “Of course I’ll stay.”

“You don’t have to leave,” Zhang says. “Like, ever, if you don’t want to.” 

“And where would I sleep?” the doctor asks gently. “Do not give up your bed for me.” 

“We’d make it work,” Sam says. “We always have.” 

Fernanda shakes her head, but she smiles. She’ll stay a while longer, probably longer than she’d like. 

“You know,” she says as they’re all settling down to rest, bundled on air mattresses and in chairs and piles of blankets, “I will never forgive myself for missing Gwendolyn’s funeral."

“Aunt Fern,” Alice says seriously, sitting up and ignoring the grunt of surprise Isaac lets out as he’s unseated from her shoulder. “We thought you were going to die yourself. Nobody wanted you traveling.” 

Fernanda huffs. “And I didn’t. And then I wasn’t there.” 

“You were actively dying,” Mariana repeats. “If you’d have tried, you probably would have. And Mom would have killed you herself if you’d showed up.” 

“You were there in other ways,” Sam adds. “You called nearly every day for almost a year. You sent flowers and managed to finagle your way into sending us food. You weren’t physically there, but you were there, Auntie.” 

Fernanda sniffles, but doesn’t say anything. It’s left at that.  


* * *

It’s unseasonably cold, the day of the funeral. It’s fitting.

While most of them wear the same clothes they wore three years ago— Gwendolyn’s funeral had been in the late summer, when the leaves were turning their fiery colors, chill creeping into the air— they have coats atop their mourning garb this time. 

They wear color. None of them have black coats, wearing grey or brown at best. There are greens and purples and blues and, Mildred’s favorite, rusty reds. The only one of them who wears black is Fernanda, and it’s technically Mildred’s coat. She hadn’t brought her own. 

The Father conducting the funeral is short and stout and smiles as if his heart does not know pain. When it steals Fernanda’s breath, he squeezes her hands and leads her to the casket.

“You remind me of another Father,” she says shakily. “He passed long ago, but Mildred and I knew—“

He squeezes her hands again. “Would you like a seat while we wait, Doctor?”

It’s a simple ceremony, and a short one. Mildred hadn’t wanted a fuss. 

She’d wanted rest.

The pews are full, as full as they had been for Gwendolyn. Neighbors, grocery store clerks, even the regular mailmen. A county judge who’d argued with Mildred more than a few times once Gwendolyn had refused to engage in banter, who always sent flowers after each call. Nurses from a nearby hospital who had gotten to know the Briggs-Ratched family through their many children. Church members, ones who came to sit with Mildred after Gwendolyn’s passing. 

Mildred’s sons— six of them, those who feel steady enough on their feet— carry her from the church. Zhang follows, sucking in deep breaths as he tries not to crush the wreath in his hands. Sam and Marco descend the stairs on either side of Fernanda, leaning on her as much as she leans on them. 

They load into cars. The trip to the cemetery is short and silent, and when they arrive Isabella pulls out a bundle of flowers from her trunk as well as a bottle of whiskey. 

Those who are not immediate family stay well enough back from the burial. They hear final rites, they stay for a blessing, they offer gentle words and gentle hands, and then they go. The priest remains with the family for a few more moments, reminds them that his home is always open, then leaves. 

Trevor stares at his hands. Isaac cannot look at his own. Zhang sways on his feet until they fail and he kneels by the foot of the grave. Nadia gathers her siblings to her as best she can, squeezes at shoulders and hands and offers her warmth. 

“It isn’t fair,” Zhang breathes.

“No,” Fernanda agrees, her hand tight against his shoulder, “it isn’t, mijo.” 

Isabella hands the bottle of whiskey to Kelly, moves to Gwendolyn’s grave, lays down a few flowers. “Is— are Trevor and Andrew—?” 

Billy tucks his hand into her elbow. “Over here,” he murmurs, and they move off. More flowers are laid. When they return, the last of the flowers go atop fresh dirt. 

Kelly uncaps the bottle and pours out a generous amount. It splashes to the ground and seeps in slowly, the ground hungry for the moisture. She hands the bottle to Fernanda.

Fernanda takes a long pull; the bottle is passed around until each of them have had a drink, shuddering at the taste, the burn, and it returns mostly-empty to Kelly’s hand. 

“I wasn’t ready,” she hisses, and Mariana’s hands find her hips as Fernanda takes the bottle. 

“No,” Fernanda says. “There isn’t a way to be ready.” She takes another swig, then flings the bottle out, the last of the whiskey spraying between Gwendolyn’s grave and Mildred’s. She grips the neck and takes a deep breath before speaking again. “That is the price we pay, those of us who love. There is no preparation for losing love, no way to turn that emotion off when the one you love is gone. There is only the pain, constant until it fades and only comes in waves. That is the risk we take.”

Wind whistles through the trees. 

“Is it worth it?” Sam asks, their voice wobbling. 

“Always.”

It’s quiet. It’s cold. One by one, they turn from the graves, returning to cars in pairs and trios, ready to make the journey back to the house that none of them can bear to leave. 

Kelly and Zhang are the last to move, and she kneels by his side, wraps her arms around his shoulders, leans her temple against the back of his head. “But since it fell unto my lot,” she sings softly, squeezing him as a breath sobs out of his chest, “that I should rise and you should not…” 

Zhang’s fingers curl in the cold grass before he pushes himself up. Kelly goes with him, turns him until his face is buried in her neck and his sobs are muffled. She struggles to keep her voice steady. “I’ll gently rise and softly call, good night and joy be to you all.” 

It’s another few moments before the two of them move again. Fernanda turns in her seat to look back at Zhang as he slips into the back with Mariana, reaches a hand back. He squeezes, though he can’t meet her eyes until Kelly starts the car. 

“Home?” Kelly asks softly.

Zhang nods. “Home.”  


* * *

It’s bright. Too bright; she’d asked Zhang to close the curtains, had he left them open? Had she really slept long enough for the sun to be this harsh?

She keeps her eyes closed. Just a few more moments of rest, she tells herself. The doctors had said she should rest. And the children— they could handle breakfast and coffee without her. Mariana wouldn’t let her do most of it anyways. 

The bed moves next to her and she stops breathing for a moment. 

It’s been three years since the bed moved like that. 

“Good morning, darling.” 

That voice— husky, warm, melodic— it resonates in her heart. 

She has to be dreaming, she thinks. Even more reason to keep her eyes closed.

The bed shifts again, and there’s warmth atop her, a shape she knows and hasn’t felt in years; warm hands find her arms and lift, wrap them around shoulders. Lips find her forehead. “You’ve slept late. I figured you needed it, sweetness, but I know you’re awake.” 

Mildred sucks in a breath and holds it. She grips at the shoulders above her— strong, soft, muscles present but not flexed. “It’s alright, Mildred. I’m here. Come on, my love, show me those pretty brown eyes.” 

She does. 

Gwendolyn looks down at her, her blue eyes shining, wrinkles by her eyes deepening as her smile widens. “Hey, sweetheart.” 

Mildred sobs, pulling herself up to Gwendolyn to tuck her face into her neck. Gwendolyn coos and pulls her close, rolls them both until she’s on her back and Mildred is on top of her. She holds Mildred until Mildred can breathe again, until she has enough breath to say— 

“How—? How can you be here, how am I— no, don’t— wait, please—“ 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Gwendolyn murmurs, carding her fingers through Mildred’s hair. “I just want to look at you.”

Mildred drinks the sight of her in as Gwendolyn runs her fingers through Mildred’s hair, over her skin, gently inspects and fixes little spots. “Still so beautiful,” Gwendolyn breathes. 

Mildred hiccups. Gwendolyn presses a kiss to her cheek. 

“What is this?” Mildred asks at a whisper. 

“It’s home,” Gwendolyn grins back, nuzzles at Mildred. She sighs, lets her weight go. 

“It’s been so long.” She’s barely finished saying it before her body sucks in a breath without her permission. Gwendolyn squeezes her again. 

“I know. I’m sorry.” She’s quiet again for a moment before she chuckles and Mildred squeezes at her shoulder. “I did warn you.”

Mildred props herself up so Gwendolyn can see her roll her eyes. It earns her a laugh, warm and musical, and she smiles with it. 

“How are the kids?” Gwendolyn asks.

Milred tucks herself under Gwendolyn’s chin. “Good, all things considered. We had two good years before I just…”

Gwendolyn squeezes her shoulders. “You can’t blame yourself for that, darling.” 

“I know. The kids, they came by more often. I don’t think Zhang and I had any nights alone after that.”

“He doing okay?”

“Going to college soon. We were supposed to pick out courses next—“ 

Her throat closes around her words and Gwendolyn presses a kiss to her forehead. “Easy. He’ll be okay. He’s got his siblings with him.” 

“I know,” Mildred half-whimpers. “I just. I just wish.” 

“I know,” Gwendolyn returns. “Trust me, I do.”

Mildred props herself up above Gwendolyn again, takes in the way her strawberry-blonde curls fan out against the pillows of their bed. 

Their bed. 

Gwendolyn smiles, and Mildred can’t help it. She lowers herself to press a kiss to Gwendolyn’s lips, sighs into it as Gwendolyn wraps her arms around Mildred’s back. 

A knock on their door startles Mildred upright.

“Ma?” the voice calls. “We’re gettin’ breakfast ready, but there’s _fuckin mail_ , and none of us know when the last time that happened—“ 

“Language,” Mildred scolds before she can stop herself, and Gwendolyn laughs that full-throated, musical laugh. 

“ _Mom_?!”

“Shit,” Mildred hisses, and Gwendolyn keeps laughing. The door bursts open.

“Mom!” Michael half-yells when he spots her. “Oh my god, Mom!” 

“Hi, sweetheart,” Mildred mutters as Gwendolyn keeps laughing. “I’m home.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed at least a little. I'm sorry I've been gone. I'll try to be along as I can. Apologies for any typos, I, uh. Could not read this again. 
> 
> <3


End file.
